


you can hide underneath me

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8337484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: Ohno moves in with a chemistry student, and suddenly nothing's the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012.

The ad is innocuous, a simple "roommate wanted!" printed in colorful letters posted on the university's notice board. Ohno is attracted to the little scribbles on it, to the multicolored haphazard stars and an animal that could be a sloth but could be a badger. A chemistry student with a two-bedroom just a few blocks away from campus is offering a room, and Ohno Satoshi, a fine arts major who spends too much time in the studio, quietly unpins the flyer from the corkboard.

He likes Aiba Masaki the moment the door is flung open in greeting. "Hi!" Ohno notices Aiba’s height first, his slightly hoarse voice second, and his origami-crinkled eyes third. His hair is a strikingly light blond and hangs straight down to his chin. Ohno likes the color and the way it shines in the light. It looks natural -- Ohno wonders if Aiba is half-Japanese.

The apartment isn't very big, but there's enough space that Ohno would have space to work without too much trouble. There’s a large “I LOVE CHIBA!” flag hanging in the genkan, and a kid's chemistry set bubbling away in the living room with a large "DO NOT TOUCH!!!" sign on the wall behind it. "Oh, yeah," Aiba laughs, his nose wrinkling as he waves in the set's direction, "be careful, okay?"

Ohno knows he’s taking the room before he even sees it.

They are complementary, Ohno realizes quickly, both of them on the messier side of organized. In the first two weeks of their co-habitation, Ohno creates enough miniature fish sculptures that Aiba insists on keeping them on a shelf in the living room. “Captain,” Aiba says cheerfully after he pins a sign to the shelf that announces ‘Ohno and Aiba’s Awesome Aquarium of Aquatic Animals!’

“What?” Ohno is distracted by the resin beneath his fingers.

“You like fish and you brought a lot home, so that makes you a captain.” Aiba’s tone of voice is firm, and the idea of it makes Ohno smile; he’s always wanted a boat.

\-----

Ohno comes home one day to find a dozen cases of different brands of beer stacked up in the kitchen. “Shopping?” he offers when Aiba bustles in, arms full of clean glass beakers.

“Oh-chan,” Aiba says over the clatter of glass against their kitchen table as he sets them down, “do an experiment with me?”

Ohno doesn't understand the experiment, but they're both having fun so he doesn't ask. All he knows is that it involves food coloring and beer and at one point Aiba decides that Ohno should do a handstand and drink blue beer through a straw.

When Ohno wakes up the next morning with the worst hangover of his life, he’s not sure he ever knew what the experiment was actually supposed to accomplish. The results, however, were he and Aiba passed out on the kitchen floor in a pool of lukewarm beer, empty cans, and broken glass. He's not sure where his pants went, or why he's wearing Aiba's shirt.

When Aiba sits up with an awful look of sickness on his face, Ohno at least manages to scrabble away quickly enough to avoid the vomit joining the mess.

It takes Ohno over an hour because he keeps on having to stop, but he manages to wipe up the kitchen floor. Aiba spends the morning with his head resting on the cool porcelain of the toilet.

The rest of the day they curl up around each other on the couch, clutching sports bottles of water and bowls of instant ramen.

"Aiba-chan," Ohno says, "let's never experiment with beer again."

Aiba nods miserably, tucking his chin into Ohno's shoulder.

\-----

During midterms, Ohno sleeps in the studio.

He wonders if Aiba is in the lab, or in the library, or in his room; Ohno goes home to shower when he has time, the bits of clay stuck in his hair and underneath his fingernails stubborn against the soap. Aiba’s door is closed and anyway, Ohno is only there for fifteen minutes before he’s out the door again.

Ohno has a ratty futon that he bought at a secondhand store that he leaves in the studio, and there he sleeps when he can’t fight the closing of his eyes as he works on piece number nine of fifteen.

He wakes up one afternoon, bleary-eyed and exhausted, covered by a blanket that he doesn’t recognize. Next to him is a bowl of gyuudon wrapped in plastic, still warm, and a note in Aiba’s messy handwriting: “I miss you! Take care of yourself while you work, okay :)”

Ohno eats quietly and feels warm.

\-----

Aiba catches a cold late in the semester, suddenly shuffling around the apartment wearing a mask that doesn't muffle his sniffles or hide the illness-induced dullness in his eyes. "It's fine," he says tiredly but with an attempt at his usual cheer, "I get sick a lot.”

Ohno can see him struggling to keep up his energy, and the slight wheezes and snuffles emerging deep from Aiba’s chest makes Ohno wince.

A week passes and Aiba’s cold doesn’t get better. Ohno makes him skip class to sleep when he realizes that Aiba hasn’t turned on the space heaters even though it’s January.

“Gruel,” Jun’s tired voice comes over the line and Ohno presses the cell phone to his ear as though his friend is giving him the directions to the fountain of youth. “Make him some rice gruel and maybe some miso soup when he gets tired of that.”

“Right,” Ohno replies, scribbling that down as he remembers his mother feeding him bowls of the soupy stuff when he was stuck in bed.

"Keep him warm so he sweats out the fever," Jun continues, and Ohno feels a little guilty. Jun is speaking slowly, his exhaustion wafting through the phone lines. Ohno knows he's been staying up late processing photos for his photography classes. "If it gets higher instead of lower by tomorrow, force him to go to the hospital."

"Okay." Ohno hopes he doesn't have to bundle Aiba up against the cold, drag him onto the subway listlessly in order to get to a doctor. 

"Good luck," Jun says, and the line goes dead.

Aiba is asleep when Ohno comes in with carefully-made rice gruel. He stands there with the tray in his hands, unsure of what to do, but he notices that Aiba is shivering even beneath his heavy blankets. The space heater is on high and humming away in the corner.

Ohno quietly rests the tray on the bedside table and slides into bed.

He doesn't know if sharing body heat works if they're both clothed, but he figures it's worth a try. Aiba is bigger than him, but he's curled into a ball, and Ohno wraps himself around him. Like a snail shell, Ohno thinks, and tightens his arms around Aiba.

When Ohno wakes up Aiba has turned to face him. Aiba has the blankets up to his nose so all Ohno can see are his eyes, the light of the setting sun coming through the window making them glitter.

"I brought you gruel," Ohno says awkwardly. Aiba's eyes crinkle and Ohno knows he's smiling.

 

 

Outtake:

The fridge in their apartment is never empty, but rarely filled with food. Instead, Aiba keeps flasks full of strange colors and smells labeled things like “do not eat!” and “???”

Ohno sticks to instant ramen and, when he remembers to buy fresh ingredients, chahan.

“Aiba-chan,” Ohno says mildly from where his head is poked inside the fridge, “the purple one bubbled over and made a hole in the shelf.”

“Oh!” Aiba is there in a hurry, pulling on protective gloves. “Don’t eat anything it touched,” he warns, pulling the still-fizzing flask out.

Ohno decides to drink water from the tap instead.


End file.
